My Invalueable Contribution To The Never-Ending National Conversation About Guns

In the wake of the horrific Sandy Hook massacre, the President finally got his rationale to renew the national “discussion” “about guns”.  All right then.  We’ve talked about the Second Amendment for decades, and found that there is no way around it. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that twenty some years ago smoking in California was not restricted by any state law.  When the restaurants were required to provide non-smoking sections (it’s for the kids!) some smokers quit because, they believed, their habit will eventually become illegal.  I thought they were paranoid.  I was never a habitual smokers because I figured it’s a tough addiction to break for a woman who wants, eventually, to become a mother.  When smoking in bars was outlawed, I wowed to keep lighting up.  Some bars were turning a blind eye to it, but, given how so few people had the cancer sticks on them, I rarely found an opportunity to do so.  A year ago a friend of family was a street fair when he got in a fight with an overzealous father who felt that he was smoking too close to his baby.  The overzealous dad probably had the law on his side because our friend was too close to a restaurant.

Guns are not cigarettes.  Tobacco users were plenty aware of the damage they were likely causing to their bodies, but gun owners believe that ownership is righteous.  And while an individual can’t stockpile a lifetime worth of puffs, the firearms in possession of American citizens will last decades if not centuries.  Still, the anti-smoking regulation is something to keep in mind when considering another “assault weapon” ban.

The NRA President Wayne LaPierre put something different on the table, namely armed guards in public schools.  I’m with Just A Conservative Girl who says:

I am so astonished, flabbergasted, and appalled at the presser that Wayne La Pierre and the NRA held today.  While he started out just fine, it just got creepier and yes Orwellian as it went along.

A federal program that puts an armed guard in every school across the country?  Uh, no.  The security of a particular school system is a local/state issue, not a federal one.  Smitty over at The Other McCain accused me of being so federalist.  My reply, you’re damn skippy I am.  What conservative can get behind this suggestion?  This is something that the left would do, not the right.  Not the gun part, but the federal government control part.  I mean the irony of all this is so thick you can cut it with a knife.  Some on the right are heralding this as the great cure-all, and the left is screaming about it.  Neither of things are true.

First and foremost, I am 100% against forcing a teacher to become a gun toter.  Many teachers would not want to do this, and as an American citizen that is their right.  The second amendment says nothing about every American must bear arms, it says the government can’t infringe upon that right.  Even if the teacher was someone who liked guns, I still think it is a bad idea.  All the students would know that the teacher is armed and I believed it could be a huge distraction; especially in schools were violence is an everyday part of life for the student body.  What I would be willing to go along with would be highly trained and certified guard of some sort.  I know where I live the police department has a unit of people who are hired out to all kinds of locations, even to some jewelry stores in the area.  But only if the school system wants this type of thing.  I don’t think it should be forced on a federal level.  This is something that state/locality should decide upon.  I know here in Virginia there is discussion if our Constitution would even allow the commonwealth to force this on every school system.  A bill is expected to be put into our legislature next month.  We will see how it goes.

I also don’t understand how a conservative leader would want to see more federal intervention in public schools.  We do have armed guards at malls, but not by presidential decree, mind you.  I don’t trust the federal government with the school children.  Judging by how well DHS and No Child have worked out, I don’t want yet another cumbersome bureaucracy.  Instead of extending federal jurisdiction over our schools, we should dismantle the DOE.  But I’m glad that some localities are taking the initiative to protect their pupils.

While I believe that unthinkable events like school shootings are unlikely to happen near me.  Lenore Skenazy is always great for perspective:

It’s impossible not to feel afraid, sad, sickened and deeply pessimistic when something like this occurs. However, “something like this” — well, there aren’t a lot of somethings like this, and that’s a truth I am desperately trying to remind my heavy soul. It may feel like “school shootings happen all the time,” but they don’t. They are rarer than rare. They are as unpredictable as anything can be. And if today we find ourselves making a mental list, “Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook,” that’s because they are few enough, in a country of 300 million, that we know their names.

This does not mitigate our sorrow, but it can — with some effort — mitigate our fear. It is not to dismiss the parents’ pain that I encourage you to turn off the TV. It is to keep some perspective. The perspective that almost dare not speak its name. The perspective that the vast majority of children in America will never encounter a psychopathic mass murderer at school, and to guard them as if they will is unnecessary.

Worse, it is bordering on ungrateful.

I would like to have armed personnel on my daughter’s campus.  Not the armed guards, but armed personnel.  Teachers, janitors, principals — whoever volunteers to carry guns — and I would like their identity to be secret.  I believe that the sickos who commit mass murders do so because they can, and I want to make their planning impossible or near impossible.  If everyday people instead of uniformed guards will carry weapons, school campuses will not feel like military zones.  Not so much because our schools will be less of targets of opportunity (they will), but because it’s normal.

Harrison of Capitol Commentary argues against the armed teachers:

This idea sounds good at first but aren’t so many Conservatives lecturing people about how incompetent teachers are and now they advocate them carrying guns?  And many public schools are filled with violent children whose parents don’t bother to raise them… do we want them to play “which teacher is carrying a gun?” in the classroom?

I don’t distrust teachers as much as Harrison.  The very individuals who fill out kids brains with propaganda are willing and able to fight and die for them.  They are not necessarily bad people; they are just wrong, and I don’t think they can’t be trusted with security if they volunteer to provide it.  Dangerously violent “children” are usually teens, and that’s a whole different matter, and something that should be decided locally.

A side benefit of introducing armed personnel on campus would be an increased conservative presence.  I don’t think most teachers in our school district will agree to bear weapons.  School districts like ours will end up with new hires who are likely to be conservative, and it’s good for the kids to be exposed to people who think differently from other adults in their lives.

The 1% Psycho

The most famous crime in literature was committed with an axe.  Rodion Raskolnikov murdered the elderly pawnbroker and her sister to prove that she, the pawnbroker, is a worm but he is an ubermensch.  Dostoevsky used the story to illustrate the death of values in modernity.  Dostoevsky’s own morals are questionable, and so are his ideas about Russian history and society.  The early Russian translations of the late 19th century German philosophers whom Dostoevsky imagined to be an influence on Raskolnikov are notoriously imprecise.  And yet, in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, how come no one is talking about Dostoevsky?

Don’t worry, this onsie is organic.  It’s probably not quite a joke, and I wouldn’t be surprised if zazzle.com actually sold a few of these to expecting literature lovers

We hear quite a bit about psychiatry.  According to his brother, Adam Lanza, the man who slaughtered 20 children and 6 adults, was on the autism spectrum, which explains what was going on, to a degree.  It’s not a sufficient explanation because Mozart, for instance, was almost certainly autistic, and yet his ailment (which informed his genius) was a gift to humanity.

What strikes me about Adam Lanza is his self-centeredness.  Sources suggest that his mother wanted to institutionalize him, which, to be sure, sounds scary.  But check out what appears to be his rationale for the rampage: he felt his mother, the woman, who, whatever her faults, literally gave her life to him, loved a kindergarten class where she did some volunteer work more than her son, which prompted him to assassinate both his mother and her 6-year-olds.  Adam Lanza thought his mama didn’t love him enough.  That’s beyond Dostoevsky.  While some critics suggest that Roskolnikov’s figure is vaguely matricidal, Dostoevsky could not consciously imagine a son who felt that the woman who gave him life was insufficiently devoted.

Adam Lanza is so spoiled rotten American.  I don’t doubt that there were dangerous autistic people in Austria in Mozart’s time and that plenty of men and women who get autism diagnosis today are responsible gun owners.  And yet the alleged rational for the mass shooting sounds so very contemporary American kid talk.  Granted, that’s an explanation proposed by some third person, not the perpetrator himself, but jealousy does seem to be a motive.

The killer might had been wired differently from his peers, but he was functional enough to soak up the anxieties common to last several generations of Americans.  They might be some of the most privileged people in history (even the ones who, unlike Adam Lanza, weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth) growing up in spacious estates with dotting mothers watching their every move.  But they are perfectly content nurturing resentment of mom and dad and feel the need of spending years on a shrink’s couch pontificating about their feelings. I suspect that Lanza was not the only 20-year-old in his neighborhood who never had a job.  He didn’t move out of the house, but how many of his former classmates will end up boomerang kids, returning to their childhood rooms (and video game collections) after college?

I have no to tax the hell out of the 1%.  But my problem with them is this: so many upper middle class/upper class parents today forgo moral education.  Everything is relative and any behavior is explained away.  High school students are less likely to have part time jobs because they are busy with college prep classes.  This is the environment in which the Newtown killer was raised.  I’m not going to blame his mother; I suspect she didn’t do anything radically different from what any other woman of her background would do had she had a mad genius for a child.  It’s just that a little more moral education wouldn’t have hurt Adam Lanza — or any other American kid for that matter.  Too many privileged kids today do things because they can, even if that means murder.

Ask Your Councilman Where He Stands on Grantly Dick-Read

Mayor Mike “Nanny” Bloomberg of banning trans fats and large sodas fame had now moved on to infant formula in New York City hospitals:

Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed.

Starting Sept. 3, the city will keep tabs on the number of bottles that participating hospitals stock and use — the most restrictive pro-breast-milk program in the nation.

Under the city Health Department’s voluntary Latch On NYC initiative, 27 of the city’s 40 hospitals have also agreed to give up swag bags sporting formula-company logos, toss out formula-branded tchotchkes like lanyards and mugs, and document a medical reason for every bottle that a newborn receives.

While there is some sort of scientific proof that trans fats and large sugary drinks are among the many causes of obesity, there is no evidence that today’s formula is inadequate.  The ban is purely political.  The American Academy of Pediatrics does recommend breastfeeding for a year, but the differences between breastfed and bottle-fed healthy babies are minor.  The composition of infant formula is being constantly improved, and we are discovering that mother’s milk, too, in some respects comes short.  Nursing mothers are now advised to supplement with vitamin D, although skeptical me wants to know if this has anything to do with the fact that we no longer sunbath our little ones.

I don’t know what possessed Nanny Bloomberg to move against the formula, but some militant breastfeeding types do refer to formula as “junk food for babies”.  It certainly doesn’t act like junk food.  Historically, lactation rates in the US have been low.  By the mid-40s most American babies were bottle fed, and a decade later the rate of breastfeeding dropped to 20%.  And yet the post-War generation didn’t know the obesity “epidemic”.

A vintage Nestle ad

In 1956, breastfeeding matrons in suburban Illinois formed the La Leche League with a mission to offer lactation support to American women.  The organization quickly spread around the globe, and is now found in countries where few babies are given the bottle.  La Leche League International were devotees of the Brithish obstetrician and “natural” parenting advocate Grantly Dick-Read, and proselytizes not just breastfeeding, but an entire philosophy of “mothering”, including unmedicated childbirth and stay at home mommyhood.  LLLI’s book The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding finds its way into the library of nearly every new mother.  I find the organization and their book very annoying.

I breastfed my children to 10 and 11 months (supplementing towards the end), and I highly recommend it.  I happened to have natural childbirths, not because I planned it this way, but because I’m one of those freaks who finds it easy to cope with labor pain.  I am a stay at home mom, although it’s something that I’m doing to be with my children when they need me most, not specifically to breastfeed.  And while I’ve dealt with really cool lactation consultants, I have no idea where to find one not affiliated in some way with La Leche.

LLL distributes misleading information, and it does so through ostensibly respectable organizations.  Towards the end of my first pregnancy I attended a breastfeeding workshop at my HMO, Kaiser Permanente.  We were told, for instance, that babies born in anesthetized childbirth are disoriented and have trouble latching on, and that breastfed babies have higher IQs.  Turns out, it’s only narcotics that cause drowsiness in babies, and the IQ discrepancy is attributed to genetics (upper middle class women are more likely to breastfeed).  I found that the best argument for breastfeeding are social, not medical.  There is no need to deal with equipment, it’s cheaper, easy for a stay at home mom, and every women in my family did it.  The Nipple Nazis, however, push inaccurate medical information.

A few hours after giving birth to my first child, I had the pleasure of being yelled at by the Kaiser lactation consultant.  My daughter had a problem latching on, I was in pain, and I complained to my nurse.  “Oh, she’s just using your breast as a pacifier”, she said. “I’ll send in lactation consultant.”  I repeated her exact words to the LC, not realizing that “pacifier” is a forbidden word.  That’s when all hell broke loose: “SHE IS DOING WHAT SHE SHOULD DO!!!” I can see this woman relishing an opportunity to lecture a post-partum mother who dared to ask for formula.

I had a strong temptation to give up breastfeeding right there, but with all the lactivist agitprop fresh in my brain, I decided to stick with it.  I can’t help thinking that the lady was mean because she could.  If LLL weren’t scaring first time moms into falling in line, perhaps their faithful would behave themselves.  And how did they end up in every hospital?  And why are they influencing policies of state and local governments?

Whatevers.  Keep your mommy wars out of my city hall

Mikie-Nanny didn’t invent the formula bans.  Formula samples were recently outlawed in Rhode Island and Taxachusetts.  An earlier 2005 Massachusetts ban was overturned by then-governor Mitt Romney.  Before mommy spilled into the mainstream politics, militant breastfeeding types were content merely working with HMOs.  By 2009, only 66% of the hospitals offered free formula samples to their clients.

When my first baby was born in 2007, I received some formula samples by mail.  From what I recall, I requested the samples.  Although I was determined to breastfeed, I thought it was prudent to have some formula stored — just in case, so that my husband wouldn’t have to run to CVS when we are sleep-deprived.  At the time nearly everyone on the maternity circuit was talking about how underhanded it was of the formula-making corporations to offer free samples.  They were akin to drug pushers who want your baby to be hooked on junk.

When I had my second baby two years later, formula samples were no longer delivered to my doorsteps.  I’m not sure why.  Instead, I had to put in a request to the hospital to include them into my welcome baby gift bag.  Once I had the baby, the hospital staffers informed me that Kaiser no longer gives out formula samples.  One would think that a mother who already successfully breastfed one baby, can be trusted with an adult product like baby formula… And yet.

The Jerseynut has a very good post about the issue; she wants to know why “keep your laws off my body” feminists seem indifferent about nanny Bloomberg’s dictate (via Legal Insurrection post of the day).  Well, Doctor Amy, for one isn’t, but that’s because she made the name for herself, G-d bless her, by fighting unscientific crap aimed at mothers, particularly on the internet.  She defends choice and explains that there is no evidence that access to formula samples at maternity wards decreases breastfeeding rates.  But even though Dr. Amy considers herself a feminist, she is not a feminist functionary, and the feminist establishment is silent on this issue.

There is an overlap between lactivists and feminists.  I once wrote about the feminist designs on childbirth.  Truth is, although feminists claim that they want every woman to decide what to do with her body, they have an agenda for our bodies.  The second wave feminist Bible Our Bodies, Our Selves, for instance, has a distinct crunchy flavor.  Feminists see breastfeeding as a right that has to be guaranteed on every street corner, in every workplace, through extended maternity leaves and freebies to those on welfare.  In my progressive knee-jerk feminist suburb breastfeeding, including extended breastfeeding is more or less the norm, at least among the white residents.  Your standard left wing feminist is against patriarchy and, by extension, capitalism.  So they hate corporations, including the ones that make formula.

American men will be really happy if we’d have more women of childbearing age breastfeeding in public

If American moms prefer bottlefeeding, doctrinaire lactivists see it as a problem, and the problem has to be corrected by any means necessary.  An old feminists refrain is that men have agendas for women’s bodies.  Well, so do women.  There are women in this country who will not be happy unless formula is only available by prescription, and even then they’d prefer a milk bank.  They are well-organized, and they have the ear of big corporations, and, more importantly, politicians’ ears.  I bet they are talking to bureaucrats in charge of implementing Obamacare.  It is certainly their right to express their opinions and to try to persuade their compatriots.  I think it’s a bit underhanded that they are not just talking to mothers and that they are bullying mothers, like in the infamous 2003 Department of Health and Human Services ad that compared formula to riding a mechanical bull while pregnant.  What I find most alarming is that our health care is already so centralized that interest groups only need to talk to a few organizations in an attempt to influence behavior.

Aurora Massacre: Not Lone Gunman?

A second person of interest is sought in connection with Aurora massacre.  So it’s not work of a lone nut?

I saw The Other McCain reporting yesterday that the suspect James Holmes might have been involved in Black Bloc.  I commented that Holmes is likely insane, and if #Occupy had anything to do with this murder at all, it’s that they probably encouraged Holmes to self-medicate.  That police is looking for a person of interest doesn’t mean that the horrific event was a work of #Occupy — or that it was somehow politically motivated — and what we are learning about Holmes seems to confirm that he was crazy.  Even if he is a lone nut, it will be interesting if he will turn out to be connected to #Occupy and not the Tea Party as per Brian Ross.

UPDATE: The shooter described himself as “middle of the road” politically.

Bay Area Birthday Circuit Report

Blogging has been sporadic lately, due, in part, to the weekly Birthday festivities my daughter is invited to attend.   I chaperone her and pretend to be bashful beyond belief.

There is always something at those parties — or somebody, like the lesbian part-time Christian minister who, according to her online bio (I looked it up), lives with her “spouse” and two adopted boys.  From what I gather, her main job is teaching sex ed in a public high school where last year several students got pregnant.  Not sure what it is exactly that she believes in; I suspect she just wants to stick it to the church.  As DH said, at least Dan Savage is straight about his goals.

These days the Birthday party circuit buzz is about elementary schools where this coming August our children will be institutionalized for the next seven years.  When asked, I usually say that while I’m not particularly impressed by American schools, I’m not yet worried because I don’t think the quality of scholarship matters that much for a kindergartener.  I leave it at that.  I suspect other mothers think I’m a Russian bitch… and they don’t know the half of it.

Last weekend, one party mother was introduced to a PTA president of her neighborhood elementary school.  The president, a pleasant enough blond with puffy hair, talked up the school and PTA.  The mother, a forty-something lady with bright auburn hair and a flying anatomical heart tattoo spread over her breasts, duly asked: “Are there any crazy people at the PTA?”  I’m not trying to suggest that a middle age woman with a partially abstracted by clothing tattoo is crazy, rather that her body art is crazy derivative.  Even if this lady was the first one to get that type of picture inked a decade or two ago, in 2012 it looks expected.  That’s the problem with tattoos.

Anywho, the blond went on to defend her neighbor in a pleasant enough voice: “Well, no.  The woman who stepped up to be my co-president this year is a bit conservative.  But, as I like to say, she has a big heart.  She is a really nice woman, although from time to time she sends me invitations to prayer groups.  I ignore them.”  Too bad the lesbian minister wasn’t within earshot.

Can you imagine?  What if the puffy-haired blond would say something like: “Yes, she is Jewish, but the good kind, she’s a long time member of Jews for Justice in Palestine and is currently working on Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement.”  Being the wrong kind of Jew (I’m still proud of being reportedly called a Zionist bitch a decade ago), I can imagine people saying things of that nature.  I suspect I can be filed under “heartless capitalist”, too, because, for one, I don’t wear my heart on my chest, but, more importantly, I don’t see myself doing any fundraising for the school my daughter is going to attend given how our school district is third most expensive in the Bay Area, while certainly not the third best, and our town is not the third wealthiest.

When I was leaving, the ladies were chirping away about community being the most important thing about the school.  When I hear them talk about “community” (or, better yet, “diverse student body”) I know the school doesn’t offer much academically.  Oh well.  Aging hipsters get to stick together while pissing away the inheritance.

I first heard about Bay Area PTAs about 10 years ago.  A couple with a school-age daughter said that they were members, and that the PTA is fine, and the school is fine.  They said, smirking approvingly, that they listed their daughter’s religion as pagan, and asked for Halloweens off as a major religious holiday.  The daughter, however, likes going to school on Halloween.

Which reminds me.  We went out for dinner tonight, and got to eavesdrop on the table next to ours.  Four yentas were talking religion.  One of them declared that she’s no longer religious, although her grandmother in China is “hella Catholic”.  A few minutes later she was declaring: “He’s a Taurus like me!”  I suppose that doesn’t make her religious because the zodiac doesn’t rise above crude superstition, but she clearly wants to believe in something.

The Obama Family Values

Blogger buddy Conservatives on Fire brought up the subject of the FLOTUS in re ‘Bumster’s not at all clear opinion about men marrying multiple women:

I think he would say he is against polygamy. He wouldn’t stand a chance in a fair fight against Moochelle.

Michelle certainly doesn’t strike me as the type who would allow a second wife on her premises.  But wait!  On her edutainingfamily trip to Africa last June the glowing First Lady paused with her daughters next to Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s polygamous leader.

3/4 of the First family meets President Zuma.

Judicial Watch criticized the trip which cost the American taxpayer nearly half a mil:

The professed purpose of Michelle Obama’s trip to South Africa and Botswana was to encourage young people living in the two growing democracies to become involved in national affairs; and during her scheduled stops in Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa and in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, the First Lady used the opportunity to speak on education, health and wellness issues.The trip also included such tourist events as visits to historical landmarks and museums, plus a nonworking chance to send time with Nelson Mandela, a meeting that Mrs. Obama described as “surreal.” The trip ended with a private family safari at a South African game reserve before the group returned to Washington on June 27.“This trip was as much an opportunity for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a trip to conduct government business,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This junket wasted tax dollars and the resources of our overextended military. No wonder we had to sue to pry loose this information.”

In the course of that wanton trip Michelle introduced her young daughters to a polygamist.  Do we really need to take her historic husband as an historic authority on family in this country?

As a side note, I’m mystified by what Africa means to the Michelle Obama.  On that 2011 trip she was clearly delighted to meet black African leaders.  Before she became the First Lady, she went to Trinity United whose leader Jermiah Wright traveled to an Arab African country, Libya, in 1984 when the US imposed sanctions on that state sponsor of terrorism.  The late flamboyant Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, of course, had quite a harem himself.  Michelle married a man with ties to Africa.  So it looks as if she’s enthralled by the continent.  At the same time, she’s undisturbed by polygamy practiced by Africans, although she probably doesn’t want something like that for herself or her daughters.  What gives?  Are Africans some kind of noble savages in her mind?

Getting Preachy on The Occasion of Doggiegate

I distinctly remember half of the Bay Area exploding with anger when Michael Vick was found to run a dog fighting ring.  Some of my arty friends opined that Vick represents everything football stands for.  I sense that we might need an expert in the uber chic field of the anthropology of food to explain why is it OK to be a United States President and brag about eating dogs.

We have dietary taboos in this country; we don’t eat humans, for instance.  Even then, a few years ago I saw a Discovery channel (I think) documentary that advocated cannibalism.  They argued that if we admit that the practice is justifiable under special circumstances, like consuming the flesh of the recently deceased following a plane crash in order to survive, then we are hypocrites and unnecessarily squeamish about the issue.

Food taboos weren’t all that hip among anthropologists I knew in college.  Although the general consensus was that we won’t eat a human or a monkey, everything else was fair game.  Even them, it was generally agreed that while back in the day anthropologists would go out of their way to claim that cannibalism never happens, now we admit that it does, but we don’t pass a judgment on it.

I have to insert this trip down memory lane that my Russian readers might appreciate.  This is “Why Had The Aborigines Eaten Cook? Or One Scientific Riddle” by Vladimir Vysotsky.  The song starts at around the 1:30 mark.  The expression “wild men” is used.  Enjoy:

When I was growing up, if I were to make an argument like the one Discovery channel made about cannibalism,  my mom would say: “Well, this is an exception that proves the rule.”  If people act in a certain way under the conditions of total social breakdown, it goes to show how low people sink when there is no functioning society.  The fact that there was cannibalism in the gulags only proves that the gulags were horrible, not that eating fellow humans is morally acceptable.

The left loves exceptions that prove the rule, only it doesn’t see them as such.  Liberals find freaky occurrences and elevate them to the norm.  See for instance, this wiki entry on gay marriage.  Turns out, the history of same sex marriage goes way, way back as Nero married a male slave.  Well, allegedly.  And, according to the rumor, he castrated him beforehand.  Maybe, just maybe, a fellow with Nero’s reputation should not define the new normal.

As much as we like smashing idols (while erecting new ones) it’s nice to know that at least some of us still have standards, and that we affirm our standards by not breaking bread with certain individuals and obeying dietary taboos.

Obamas seated with late Egyptian American academic Edward Said at a dinner for PLO terrorist Rashid Khalidi

Some of us let their pets lick plates and sleep in the master bedroom.  Others are so unsure about who to consider family that they admit cats and dogs, and insist on calling themselves pet guardians instead of pet owners.  Me, I’m not a pet person at all; DH was talking about getting a dog, but we shelved this idea, at least for now.  Still, I recognize there is such a thing as four-legged friends.  After all, we don’t take anything from pets other than the pleasure of their company.  We don’t eat them.

Sandra needs a cat. (Via Political Junkie Mom, via Lonely Conservative)

Judging by TV programming, the entire country enjoys the spectacle of breaking dietary taboos.  The Travel Channel has Andy Zimmern going around the world eating bizarre offerings.  I never watched much of that show, and I don’t remember him eating a dog.  It wouldn’t surprise me if he did, but from what I recall his staple diet were gross out creatures, like reptiles and amphibians.

That Barack Obama is proud of eating dogs confirms that he’s more interested in exotic street cred than being an American (or even, more broadly, Western) man.  No wonder he seems so alien to so many of us.  It’s healthy that this fact was met with great ridicule.

UPDATE: Ah!  Andy Zimmern won’t eat dogs.  (Via King Shamus.)

UPDATE: David P. Goldman on President dog-eater (Via Camp of Saints, via Laughing Conservative):

Obama is the son of a Kenyan Muslim father, the stepson of an Indonesian Muslim, and the child, most of all, of an American anthropologist who devoted her career to protecting Indonesian traditional life against the depredations of the global marketplace. Her doctoral dissertation, “Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving against all odds,” celebrated traditional cultures hanging on desperately in the face of the global economic marketplace.

[...]

We laugh about it, but people in some Third World countries eat dog meat because they are poor — not only so poor that they will consume almost any source of protein, but so poor that they cannot afford to enjoy the natural bond between human and canine that began almost 15,000 years ago.

[...]

It really isn’t unfair at all to bring Obama’s canine consumption to public attention. The president isn’t really one of us. He’s a dog-eater. He tells the story in his memoir to emphasize that viscerally, Obama identifies with the Third World of his upbringing more than with the America of his adulthood. It is our great misfortune to have a president who dislikes our country at this juncture in our history.